In Mi Piace! – Part 1. I wrote: “In Italian it’s not the person that does the liking, but the thing that pleases the person”. Today we’ll find out why it’s so important to understand this basic concept.

Insisting on translating ‘mi piace‘ as ‘I like it’ is fine if you never intend to move beyond basic ‘holiday’ Italian, but very unhelpful if you want to say anything a bit more complex, as will become apparent in the second half of today’s article. But first let’s look at how the forme toniche correspond to the forme atone which we covered in Mi Piace! – Part 1.
N.B. If you’re not sure about how indirect personal pronouns work then you’ll need to go over this article: Italian Indirect Personal Pronouns

The question is, of course, why would you say ‘a me piace‘ instead of ‘mi piace‘? Well, there’s an easy answer and a difficult answer. The easy answer is that we use the forme toniche ‘a me piace‘, ‘a te piace‘, etc. to emphasise or clarify the individual who is pleased by/likes something (n.b. in spoken language you’d hear the stress on the underlined words)

Insegnante: A chi piacciono i topi? Studente: A me non piacciono per niente! =  Teacher: Whom do mice please? Student: They don’t please me at all! (Teacher: Who likes mice? Student: I don’t like them at all!)
Nonna: A qualcuno di voi piace il gelato? Nipotina: A me piace molto! = Grandmother:  Does ice cream please any of you? Granddaughter: It really pleases me! (Do any of you like ice cream? I really like it!)

The difficult answer is that you’ll hear both the forme toniche and the forme atone used interchangeably: mi piace camminare/a me piace camminare = walking pleases me (I like walking). These ‘sfumature‘ (shades) of usage are impossible to learn unless you are totally immersed in the language. They are the subtle aspects of language acquisition which are absorbed through osmosis.

Note that when the person who is ‘being pleased’ is named we always use the prepositions a, agli, ai, alle etc. (to/to the), hence ‘a Marco piace  giocare a tennis‘, ‘alle ragazze piace la spiaggia‘, ‘ai gatti piacciono i croccantini‘, and so on.

Now let’s move on to the types of conjugations that require you to fully understand the concept of being pleased by something as opposed to liking it.

‘They told me that she likes me’

So, how do you say that into Italian? If you’re still stuck with the concept of ‘I like it’ what on earth do you do when you want to say ‘she likes me’?
Well, once you’ve grasped the idea of being pleased by something/someone then it’s really not that complicated. Firstly, here are the conjugations of piacere in the present tense:
io piaccio = I please
tu piaci = you please
lui/lei piace = he/she/it pleases
noi piacciamo = we please
voi piacete = you please
loro piacciono = they please

‘Gli piaccio, non gli piaccio‘ He likes me, he like me not. Photo by Geoff.

Now let’s have a look at ‘They told me that she likes me’ from an Italian perspective.

‘They told me that she likes me’ would be: ‘They told me that I please her’, hence: ‘Mi hanno detto che le piaccio‘.

Let’s try a couple more shall we?

‘They say that they like us’ from an Italian perspective would be: ‘They say that we please them’, hence: ‘Dicono che gli piacciamo‘

‘I know that he likes you’ from an Italian perspective would be: ‘I know that you please him’, hence: ‘So che gli piaci‘

Dear readers, the fun is just beginning … just wait until we get into the present perfect, the conditional, the subjunctive, and so on!

Part 3. coming soon …

A presto!